Blue moon ... blue (and purple) beads

I recently received a message via my Etsy shop asking for some renegade beads. This particular customer wanted some cooler spectrum beads in blues and purplee instead of the single colour options I list quite frequently. I had a root around in my leftovers jar and managed to come up with the above selection. They look so pretty together, I might make up some more bi-coloured renegade sets as I'm sure other people would be interested in them as well.

Immediately after I listed them in the shop (along with some other sets), I made a note in my diary of the amount I listed today (this is a habit of mine) and my diary tells me that there's a bloon moon today. This bodes well for this blue and purple lampwork set, fingers crossed the customer likes them!

Please feel free to make suggestions for other colour combinations at any time either via my Etsy shop or right here in the comments section. 

I hope everyone is having a Happy Blue Moon Easter Saturday.

More plasma

You all knew it was only a matter of time before I came up with a blue version of the plasma doughnut nuggets, didn't you?! Yes, predictable old me, here they are. They go really well with blue denim, I have got a big batch of these annealing in the kiln as I type so they'll be turned into jewellery before the weekend. :-)

I have gone a bit mad on these plasma beads, I know but I will be doing something different soon, I promise.

This is a PS I got today in an e-mail from my sister, Sandy. She commutes to London every day on the train; she's so funny, she should have a blog herself!

P.S. You know how wet it was this morning - well, it was when I was waiting for the train anyway .... I was trying to fold up my soaking wet brolly whilst fighting for a seat this morning and the bloomin' thing sprung open again and soaked everyone in the carriage! - ooops! (it's an automatic one and you really have to struggle to get it to click) - I was very apologetic and I think the passengers saw the funny side - I kept giggling for ages after though!

More blues

Not BB King or Muddy Water blues, these are hap-hap-happy blues. I made a couple of these beads as experiments and have decided to go into production with them, there are a whole bunch of them cooling down in the kiln as I type. They have a CIM Lapis base, a frit blend melted in and then encased in clear. I like the way the Lapis has "veined" behind the individual shards of frit colours.

New blue tardis

I've made some blue tardis beads, rather appropriate as Dr Who's tardis is blue. I've been playing around with Amy Kinsch's storming technique on and off for a while and these are my favourite beads so far to come out of my experiments. The swirly texture underneath the clear raised dots is mesmerising.

They take ages to make, I'm not the fastest beadmaker in the word as it is but the most I can do in an hour is 5! I've got 12 in total and am looking forward to turning these beads into jewellery tomorrow. :-)

Some new beads

At last, here is a blue version of my dimpled nugget beads. I have tried loads of blue combinations, as blue is my favourite colour, it had to be just perfect so I took my time. It's a mixture of Effetre Ocean and Reichenbach's Mystic blue. I'm very pleased with them but I'm not sure any of the jewellery made with the current batch is going to make it as far as the stall - I'm pretty sure I'll be keeping it myself! I have plans for a purple and aqua version but none of the prototypes are quite right yet.

I've also been making beads for a regular customer. She wanted a pink version of the akamai beads which have so far been made in the following colourways:

• turquoise/violet
• orange/brown
• blue/green

I'm sure a pink one would be as well received as the others so this is what I've come up with for her.

The other akamai beads had blobs of sis (silvered ivory stringer)* swirled inbetween the colours but that didn't work with pink so I've used a combination of opaque pink, EDF and an intensely pink frit blend. I showed this bead to my customer on Saturday and I think she liked it but I showed her the new pink dimpled nuggets at the same time and she preferred those! All the same, I think I'll make a batch of these cos I like 'em!

*For non-beadmakers, sis is a rod of ivory coloured glass with silver foil burnished into the surface, the rod and foil is then melted into a blob and when it's still in it's melted state pulled out using tweezers into a thinner rod. The thinner rod is then applied sparingly to beads in the case of the akamai beads.